Burned
by brittanybirdx
Summary: The image would be forever burned in his memory. He couldn't escape it and it was driving him to insanity.
1. Destruction

So following last night's episode "Funk" I have hit a funk of my very own. I cannot find it in me to hate Jesse, possibly due to my immense love for Jonathan Groff. It was obvious that St. Berry came with an expiration date, but I certainly hope they won't end it with as horrible an ending as that.

So in light of this, I keep looking for reasons that would cause his sudden shift in character, and I pray that we will get a reason in the finale.

* * *

He was in love with her. He wasn't sure how it happened, when it happened, or why. Jesse St. James didn't do love. Love was for people with nothing else going for them, and he had everything.

You could say he loved the limelight, but really it was more than that. He was a star, and he was well aware of it. Hell, the whole country should know it. He was a three time national champion. And with that he had always understood that it was lonely at the top.

So the fact that she had somehow made her way into the damn heart he wasn't even aware he had is so incomprehensible it's making him sick.

This was supposed to be a game, an acting experience, tuning his already fine skills, and strengthening his talent. He wasn't supposed to feel anything.

So why? What was so great about her?

Was it the way her fine chocolate hair fell below her shoulders, or the silky feel of her carmel colored skin? The look of her eyes that has a continuous shine just like the star she was destined to be, perhaps? Could it be the talent and power of her voice, or the fact that for the first time in his life he found someone who could be an equal?

Most importantly, could it be that he loved her, because for the first time in his life he felt as though someone might love him back?

Jesse St. James was a lot of things. Girls came easily to him, almost every guy throughout his life envied his confidence. His teammates appreciated the fact that he was theirs, but no one had ever cared.

Not his parents who were off in God knows what country, or Shelby Corcoran, the woman who had guided him through the past four years of his life. And he had excepted that. It was the people who suffered who were successful. If he was strong enough to grow up without anyone caring for him, he was strong enough to handle anything.

Then she comes along with her gut-wrenching smile and her fucking breath-taking eyes and for the first time in his life he's captivated by something other than the bright lights of the stage. He's never been so ashamed.

But most importantly, he's never been so terrified.

* * *

He knows he has to tell her. Come clean and pray that she can find it in her to forgive him for being a monster. Playing on the weaknesses she had so freely revealed to him, and taking advantage of the trust she handed to him.

After, he would call the woman who started this mess and tell her he wouldn't be back, and dedicate himself to making her dreams come true, as he promised her from the start.

But first, she would have to hear him out, and knowing Rachel as he does, the passionately over-dramatic, yet dangerously fragile girl that she is, the odds aren't looking too good.

Still he has to try, because this sickening feeling in his gut keeps reminding him that he loves her, and that things will only get worse with time.

* * *

He knows to where she is, because like him she takes every opportunity to be under the bright lights, to shine like the star that she knows she'll be.

One step forward and two steps back, he struggles to make his way to that damned auditorium, knowing full well that this could be the beginning of the end of the first real thing he's ever known outside of vocal pitches and choreographed routines.

After nearly five minutes of behaving as though he was some pathetically under-confident thirteen year old, he sucks it up and makes his way down the hall, his feet getting seemingly heavier with every step he takes. After what seems like years he reaches the doors, and pulls on the handle before he can chicken out and run as far as he can, back to Carmel and the safety of being the best. He makes his way through the doorway and in that moment everything changes.

He watches for moments, behaving in a way he believes he's picked up from her, with a blind hope that he is simply seeing the situation in the wrong way. That his eyes are playing tricks and that everything will work out fine.

But then everything he cares about falls out from under him in those seconds when she falls into his arms. The arms of the boy who had broken her a hundred times over, the boy who had her cry more tears than he thought a girl of her size would ever be capable of. And when their lips brush, he has to look away, needs to get out of that room.

He starts to run. He doesn't know what he feels exactly. It's foreign to him, much like most emotion is. It was like nothing he's ever experienced before.

For a moment he feels as though he's dying.

There's a burning so painful in his chest he almost drops to the ground. He wonders if this is heartbreak, wonders if that's why he has to will the liquid not to spill from his eyes.

But most of all, there's an insurmountable amount of rage radiating. A sheer force of anger so fierce he swears he could commit murder.

And he will.

He will kill every bit of happiness that their damn pathetic excuse for a glee club has. He will destroy every laugh or hope they have for Regionals, every little bit of confidence they have in their futures.

He'll destroy the neanderthal Finn Hudson with his horrible performance skills and barely mediocre talent.

But most of all he would ruin her, the girl he was willing to give it all up for just moments before. Because love never brings anyone anything other than pain and he should've known better. He was better than the pathetic teenage emotions and confusions. He was Jesse St. James.

And he would not let Rachel Berry destroy him. He would destroy her first.


	2. Break

**Thank you all for the amazing reviews! This chapter is more of just an in-depth expansion of Jesse during "Funk". What was going through his head at different times. It's a bit short, but I hope you all enjoy and I'll try to get the next chapter out soon.**

**I don't own anyone or anything unfortunately. If I did, St. Berry would live on forever to create the most beautiful and talented babies to ever existed.**

* * *

Twenty minutes. Just twenty minutes was how long it took him to reach the place he thought he would never return to.

Carmel High School.

Where everything was bigger and brighter, at least he believe someone (who's name he will not let slip or invade his mind) said that to him once.

Thirty five minutes and a phone call to some long-distance line later and he is once again the most talented student of the Carmel student body.

It takes all of five minutes for his team to accept him back (not that they would've been anything without him) and an hour to come up with a routine he was sure could crush any positivity that New Directions (she) had.

But most importantly, it takes Jesse St. James's heart exactly four hours and a perfected routine to go completely numb.

* * *

_"Jesse, what are you doing up there with them?"_

The moment of truth found to be much more difficult then he expected. When he sees her, he wants to throw up, scream, cry, and hold her all at the same time.

He's pretty sure he's losing it.

But he places his focus on the task at hand, because Jesse St. James has never failed, and he would certainly not let any girl, no matter how angelic her voice sounded or how driven she was, get in the way of his own perfection. He puts his show-face on, and simply explains the truth. That New Directions (Finn Hudson) would never compare, could never compare to the talent and overall superiority of Vocal Adrenaline (himself).

Their performance is flawless, which surprises no one. He wonders if she picked up on the meaning of the song, if she understood the truth to the words. But, no. He wouldn't be bothered. Focus, Jesse.

They had achieved what they had set out to do. They had set the foundation for McKinley High's ultimate destruction.

So why was that god damned ache still there in his chest?

He could feel the burning of her eyes upon him, and avoided the shiver it caused, because she could no longer have any affect on him.

He locked eyes with her for a moment and god, she was as gorgeous as ever. She stood there with tears in her big chocolate saucers staring directly at him. And he forgets. Wants nothing more to hold her in his arms and kiss her until they're both left breathless. How could anyone not love a creature as beautiful as she? But then he sees _him_ staring at her as well, and he is reminded of what he has set out to do. Of what she brought upon herself.

He could see the emotions sketched across her beautiful face. Confusion, shock, humiliation, anger, pain.

And while it doesn't help the ache, he smiles to himself, because she is finally getting a taste of what she gave him every time she looked to Finn Hudson.

Welcome to the world of true heartbreak, Rachel Berry. It will only get worse from here.

* * *

He personally finds humiliation in the immaturity of his own team. At least that's what he tells himself when they reveal the next step of their plan to him.

It is certainly not because she owns his heart that he is sick to his stomach at the idea of her covered in eggs.

Jesse St. James is better than juvenile pranks. Or so he tells himself.

But that won't stop him from joining his team of heartless, soulless performers in their humiliation of her.

After all, he is one of them.

* * *

Everything is going according to plan, he supposes. She rounds her way to him in perfect timing, much like the many routines they had performed together in the ballet club he had joined upon her request.

And there is that breath-taking smile that used to (still) capture(s) his heart. For a split second it takes him back to just a few short weeks ago, when she smiled at him and he smiled back and they were happy. Or at least he believed them to be. But then again he believed she loved him, so what did he really know anyway?

He can feel his show face slip, and for a moment he's almost excited. Or worried. He's not really sure what anything is anymore.

This whole love thing was fucking with his head.

Then the egg cracks, and suddenly all he wants to do is save her. Gather her in his arms and run away to a place where they could be together with no challenge or judgment or agenda or talentless quarterbacks. But that was impossible. Reality was a bitch.

He watches as her clothing is covered, never looks away as her beautiful hair is mangled with yellow and white. Each egg hurting him just as bad as it hurt her.

He was dying. It was killing him to watch her suffer. He had to save her, he needed to help her, to keep her safe.

But he couldn't. It was as if his feet were glued to the ground and he was stuck watching.

He truly was a monster. A man who could watch the only person he ever loved be torn apart.

It was almost masochistic. His longing to hurt her only brought him more pain.

Eventually it stops, and the verbal abuse begins. He doesn't break eye contact, meeting those eyes with everything he has, every second of pain he has felt since that moment in the auditorium. The moment where it all fell apart.

And she doesn't back down. She takes everything they throw at her, but verbally and literally. It makes him sick.

If there was a bridge around, he would've surely thrown himself off it by now.

Soon after they prod her with endless taunts and insults, they challenge him. Dare him, question his capability to carry out the plan. And, like he said before, Jesse St. James doesn't fall short.

He makes the world his stage.

So he steps up to her and does as she asks. He breaks her heart and his own (all over again) in the time it took to break the egg upon her forehead.

_"I loved you."_

That moment, the look they shared, might haunt him for the rest of his life.

He walked away, leaving her standing there in the middle of what she believed to be her own haven, covered and humiliated.

They both cried. Both felt the pain of heartbreak, the reality that they were falling apart.

He lied. And it broke her.

It only made him feel worse. He loved her even more then he did yesterday.


End file.
